Editorial: Simplifying special district elections

Riverhead Town Hall is at 200 Howell Ave. Photo Credit: Carl Corry

The Riverhead Town board wants to simplify our unnecessarily complicated election calendar. Their target: special district elections. Good move.

Riverhead has asked state officials to set one date for the dizzying array of fire, library, park, sanitation and water district elections -- as was done in 1996 with school districts. Special district elections are scattered across the calendar, making it difficult for voters to keep track of them. Turnout is meager.

The logistics require some massaging; voters cannot be expected to traipse from one polling place to another all day. But one common date would help focus attention on special districts, which operate largely out of the public eye. That kind of daylight is never bad.

If only the consolidation of election dates would lead to the consolidation of the districts themselves.